Rise of the Guardians of Olympus
by The Nerdinator
Summary: Guardians of Olympus, S1E1. The Fates tell a recently-emerged Athena the backstory of the Guardians, genetically-modified immortal humans. Guardians of Olympus is a serial fic, about hilarious retellings of Greek myths - set in the distant future!
1. Cold Open

**April 15, 3880 AD, 12:30 PM.**

 **Olympia, New Greece.**

"Oh..." Zeus groaned, clutching his stomach. "I don't feel so good."

"Honey, I told you not to eat that jalapeño burrito!" Hera scolded.

Zeus kept groaning.

"I'll get a barf bag," their son Hephaestus volunteered. Just then, Zeus doubled over and vomited. "Never mind."

Instead of normal vomit, out of Zeus' mouth came...a blond-haired woman with sea green eyes, wearing a pale blue dress and Greek-style sandals. And she was furious.

"Zeus!" she shouted. "That was horrible. How dare you marry someone else behind my back! I want a divorce!" The woman (who was actually an Oceanid-class nymph named Metis) stormed out of the room.

Hera glared at Zeus.

"I forgot about her..." Zeus trailed off. Then he vomited again. This time, he threw up a different woman, a woman who had pale white skin and black hair, wearing a simple white cotton dress and flat sandals. The woman got up, wiped her hands off on the back of her dress, and opened her eyes, which were a stormy gray.

She looked around the room and spoke.

"Umm...is there a problem?"

Everyone else stared.

"What on _earth_ do they put in those burritos?" Hephaestus asked.


	2. El theme song

_The humans took themselves for granted_

 _Then a nasty plague swept the planet..._

 _And the last remaining nations_

 _Began to plan for new creations._

 _And now we've got:_

 _Athena, Aphrodite, Artemis, Apollo too;_

 _Ares, Hera, Hephaestus, Poseidon, Demeter, and Zeus._

 _There's Hermes, and there's Dionysus, who round out the bunch_

 _(There's also Hades and Hestia, but they're not around so much...)_

 _There's titans, and monsters, and hybrids everywhere:_

 _Like Hercules, who once dressed up as a woman for a dare._

Hercules: Hey!

 _The world won't be the same again, not after all this fuss._

 _But at least it's got_

 _The Guardians of Olympus! (Wop)_


	3. Call Them Fates

"What's going on?" the new guardian asked as Hephaestus and a blond-haired girl lead her down the streets of Olympia, the floating city of New Greece.

"We're taking you to the Fates," Hephaestus explained. "They have the power to recall the past better than anyone. They'll tell you everything you need to know about our history."

"Bo-ring!" the blond said. "Spending a day with three one-hundred-year-old ladies? You wouldn't catch me doing it."

"Aphrodite, Athena's new here. She doesn't know our history like we do. And the Fates are the best people to teach it."

"But why do I have to go too?" Aphrodite whined. "It's so lame!"

"Dad's orders," Hephaestus replied. "He's the leader and in our case our father, so we have to obey him."

"I spent twenty-five years in his stomach...and _this_ is what I've been missing?" Athena asked.

"It gets worse. Sometimes Dad has amnesia attacks and forgets who he's married to. That's how Aphrodite happened, by the way."

"Hey!" Aphrodite snapped.

Hephaestus eyed a large, white building on their left. "Here we are," Hephaestus said. "We'll come back in a few hours. Good luck." He and Aphrodite left.

* * *

Athena sighed. "My first day in the open world, and I'm abandoned already. What is with these people?"

She walked through the door into a long, white corridor. As she walked down its length, she saw a series of portraits, the first two depicting mysterious figures. The first displayed a brown-haired woman who, judging by the man who was also in the portrait, stood 150 feet tall. The next was a muscular man with red skin and crimson hair - also big, but significantly shorter, at around ten feet tall. The third had someone Athena recognized - a buff man with blond hair that was slowly graying, a thick beard, and stormy gray eyes. Zeus, Athena's father.

At the end of the hall was a door. Not knowing what else to do, Athena opened it.

She was dragged inside, the door slamming shut behind her.

The room was dark, and Athena could barely see. Then a dim light flickered on, and Athena saw three elderly women. One wore a dark red cloak; another wore a pale green one; and the third was in a violet one. All three had grayed skin and dull brown eyes.

"Athena," spoke the Fate in the red, in a dry and gravelly voice.

"Who are you?" Athena asked.

"I am Clotho, youngest of the Fates sisters. The others are Lachesis", she said, pointing to the one in green, "and Atropos," pointing to the one in violet. "We know you have just emerged and know nothing about the Guardian history."

"It seems Metis, your mother, neglected to tell you," Lachesis added, in a voice similar to her sister's.

"But," Atropos said, "we will remedy that. Sit down [Athena did that] and we will tell you all. How it all began one century ago."


	4. Giant Woman

**AN: Flashbacks will be** **underlined** **.**

* * *

"Our tale begins on February 29, 3780, with a great tragedy," Atropos continued. "A mysterious plague began to kill people left and right. Oddly, it would make only humans sick, and nothing else. But the bacteria responsible spread worse than a wildfire, and by March 12 the human population had been cut down from 6.4 billion to 150 million."

"Those last few people were immune to the plague," Clotho explained.

"Wow...that's a serious genetic bottleneck right there," Athena commented.

"Indeed. Wanting to protect their legacy, they started The Guardian Project on March 15. We are Guardians," Clotho said, gesturing to herself and her sisters. "And you are a Guardian, too," she added, pointing to Athena.

"But...what IS a guardian?"

"A genetically-modified subspecies of human. We are immortal, as we cannot be killed and stop aging after a certain point, due to genes introduced on an extra pair of chromosomes. On top of that, we have supernatural abilities normal humans lack. Your half-brother Hephaestus, for example, has electrokinesis - control over electricity. Your father has aerokinesis - control over atmospheric gases. Currently, we do not know your special ability."

"Originally, they were planning for one Guardian," Lachesis said. "They wound up with three instead. We Fates were those original three. After us came Tartarus, who can communicate with the souls of the dead, and his sister Gaia, who can change her size at will."

* * *

 **October 4, 3815 AD, 12:29 PM  
**

 **Olympia, New Greece**

Gaia sighed.

"What's wrong, sis?" Tartarus asked..

"I'm lonely. It sucks to be one of only five Guardians around," she replied. "I wish there was someone like me, you know? A guy who I can relate to, who I can trust, someone I can love..."

"You can just date a regular human."

"That wouldn't be the same. They'd probably want to meet parents I don't have, and they just wouldn't know what it's like to be me."

"Here we go again."

"You will not be alone forever," a younger Lachesis spoke. She and her sisters were with the other two Guardians on the streets of the floating city Olympia, which had been designed almost a thousand years before, but only now had been finished. "I sense that there is a Guardian just like you, only male."

Loud footsteps.

"Oh, here he comes now."

A large black-haired man, about Gaia's age, strutted into the street the five were standing. He stopped walking and shrunk down to a normal human size.

"Hi, guys," he said. "I'm Oranus. I've been living in Athens all my life, and then I got sent here."

"Are you a Guardian too?" Tartarus asked.

"Can normal people change their size?"

"My sister can, and she's about as normal as you get."

Oranus looked at Gaia, who was helplessly blushing.

He smirked. "Looks like I made a friend."

* * *

"They got to talking, which became dating, which became marriage," Atropos said. "They had sextuplets, all boys."

"Geesh, that had to hurt," Athena commented.

"The children could not change their size, but they were still formidable. Ten feet of red-skinned muscle. Titans, they were called, because of their phenomenal strength and power. A new generation of Guardian."

"The project that had created their parents also made six female counterparts, the Titanesses, should the Titans need female companionship," Lachesis went on. "Some never needed a romantic partner; Cronus, the youngest of the Titans, did, so he married Rhea, the youngest of the Titanesses."

"Were the Titanesses sisters?"

"No, but they were as close as sisters are. And then came some...other beings..."

* * *

 **May 6, 3840 AD, 2:12 PM**

 **Athens, New Greece  
**

"We are coming here to show you something I made myself," Gaia said to all the other Guardians in the room. "Something I cooked up as my contribution to the Guardian Project." She pulled down a curtain covering the large tubes behind her.  


In each of the six cryogenic tubes was a monstrous creature. Three of the creatures looked like reptilian frogs, standing twelve feet tall, with an eyepatch over their right eyes. The other three looked a bit like octopi, with four wormlike legs and twenty arms. On closer inspection, each of the five fingers were smaller arms in their own right. The latter three creatures were significantly larger, at about fifty feet tall.

All the others were shocked.

"We will release them into the world," Gaia said triumphantly.

"No we aren't," Oranus said, pressing a button. A large forklift appeared and began to transport the tubes back to where they came from. "We can't have monsters like those running around."

"This is crazy!" Phoebe yelped.

"Yeah, but he has a point," Oceanus said quietly.

"Oranus, you're overreacting," Gaia said.

"Am not!" her husband snapped.

* * *

"Sad," Athena said. "He never even talked to them."

"Gaia could not talk sense into him," Lachesis said, "so she decided to try something else. Which failed horribly."

* * *

 **May 7, 3840 AD, 10:15 AM**

"Cronus," Gaia said. "I would like you to talk to your father."

"What for?" the Titan asked.

"I haven't been able to convince him to change his mind about the Cyclopes and the Hecatonchieres," she replied. "Perhaps you could."

"Why not have my brothers do it?"

"You're the youngest. He may listen to you better. That, and I haven't been able to find the other five all morning."

"Ah."

"Now go out there and make Momma proud!" she said, patting him on the back.

As soon as she left, Cronus pulled out a walkie-talkie.

"Sunny Days, this is Time Lord, come in, Sunny Days."

"I copy, Time Lord," Hyperion said from the other end. "Is the plan ready?"

"Affirmative. Commence Operation: Get in Charge!"

"Roger that. Over and out."


	5. Cronus Gets a Prophecy

**May 7, 3840 AD, 3:30 PM  
**

"Father?" Cronus asked.  


"Hm?" Oranus responded. He, Gaia, and Tartarus had just finished filing paperwork for their water bill, and were getting ready to send it off.

"I was wondering...why didn't you like what Mom made?"

"Because," Oranus said, "what if they are monsters? I mean, on the inside as well as the outside? I can't have them running around. You could be hurt!"

"Dad, I'm immortal, and you know it."

"We can still get hurt!"

"I'm gonna mail this..." Tartarus interrupted. He got up, bill in hand, and left.

"Anyway...Iapetus made this new soda, and he wanted to know if you'd like to try it out," Cronus said, pulling out a glass bottle filled with purple fluid.

"Sure thing, son," Oranus said. He took the bottle, opened it, and guzzled the entire thing. "Yum, grape flavor," he said, smacking his lips together.

Then he got a pained expression on his face, and shrunk, clothes and all, to six inches high. He was very bewildered.

"Psyche!" Cronus said, laughing. "That wasn't soda: that was a shrink formula!" He then pulled out a terrarium and stuck Oranus in it.

"Why did Iapetus make a grape-flavored carbonated shrink formula?" Oranus asked.

"I'm usurping your power, Pops," Cronus said bluntly. "My brothers, the titanesses, and I have agreed that I'm better at this protection-of-human-legacy dealio than you are. So, we're taking over."

"I figured _that_ out. I was asking why your brother made the shrink formula bubbly and grape-flavored."

"So you would take the bait! Duh!"

At this point Gaia, who had watched the banter without interaction, stood up, fuming. "Cronus! I told you to talk some sense into your father, not shrink him! We would have taken your suggestions had you given them to us!"

"...No, you wouldn't have."

Cronus ran away.

"That boy is so GROUNDED!" Gaia snarled.

"He's twenty-seven. Can people that old get grounded?" Oranus asked.

"I'll find out soon enough!" Gaia replied, before running after her son.

* * *

"Did she get him?" Athena asked Lachesis.

"Well, not exactly..."

* * *

Gaia finally caught up to Cronus, and grew to her full size of 150 feet. "Young man, you are in BIG trouble once we get home!" she roared.

"Nuh-uh, Mom," Cronus said. He snapped his fingers. Suddenly, four of Cronus' brothers - Hyperion, Crius, Iapetus, and Koios - sprung out of the bushes, each armed with a tranquilizer gun. They fired several rounds onto Gaia, until the dart-covered Guardian fell over, unconscious.

"Take her to that place far away from here I told you about," Cronus told Crius. "The Titans are in charge now."

"Sure thing, bro," Crius said.

"Wait...wasn't Oceanus supposed to be here too?"

"He was busy trying to rebuild some of the coral reefs."

"Oh. Well, that's okay, coral reefs are pretty cool."

* * *

"Wow," Athena said. "So then what?"

"Cronus married Rhea," Clotho said. "When she got pregnant with their first child - your aunt, Hestia - they saw the Oracle of Delphi so she could predict their future."

"Oracle?"

"Another Guardian. The Oracle was the corpse of a deceased pair of female conjoined twins, reanimated and brought to immortality."

"Ew."

"Tell me about it."

* * *

 **January 14, 3841 AD, 5:09 PM  
**

"Okay, Rhea, let's do this," Cronus said, patting his wife's swollen belly. "I want a good future."

"Of course you do," Rhea said, giggling. She brushed a strand of crimson hair out of her eyes.

The two walked into the chamber where the Oracle resided. The chamber was dark, save for the eerie pale green glow coming from the Oracle herself.

The Oracle was pale and sickly-looking. She had two heads, who had once had individual consciousnesses, but not anymore. Her mousy-brown hair was mangled, her limbs frail. She hung from chains attached to the ceiling, giving the illusion that she was hanging in midair.

"Wise and powerful Oracle," Cronus said. "Tell me what is in store for my daughter and all children that may come after."

Silence.

The Oracle turned her heads to Cronus, staring him down with all four of her blank, pupilless eyes. Then, in a very creepy voice that sounded like two voices speaking as one, she spoke, both of her heads talking simultaneously.

"What has happened before will happen again," she said. "Soon another father will have fallen. A child of Rhea, perhaps in their teens, will topple and end the Titan regime."

She stopped and turned away.

Cronus and Rhea left.

* * *

 **January 14, 3841 AD, 7:30 PM**

"Dearest, I'm worried," Cronus said. "What if she's right?"  


"Don't worry about it," Rhea said. "Sometimes the Oracle's prophecies mean something completely different."

"Yeah," Mnemosyne said. "One time she gave me a prophecy, and I thought New Greece would be buried under a volcano. Turns out she was predicting what I would put on my shopping list."

But Cronus was still very worried.

* * *

"Then what?" Athena asked.

"Hestia was born, and then...Cronus did something very peculiar," Atropos said.

* * *

 **May 22, 3841 AD, 8:14 PM**

 _I gotta make sure that this kid doesn't overthrow me,_ Cronus thought.  


Rhea walked into the waiting room, carrying a tiny little baby girl.

"Meet Hestia," Rhea said, smiling.

The little baby babbled incoherently, playing with her flamboyant orange hair.

Cronus took the baby in his arms...and then swallowed her whole.

"Cronus?! What the heck are you doing?!" Rhea shrieked.

"Making sure she never overthrows us," Cronus replied calmly.


	6. Our Zeus is Cooked

"Ew ew ew ew EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW," Athena groaned. "That was disgusting. Why would he do that?"

"If the child is in his stomach, they're not present to overthrow him," Atropos said matter-of-factly. Her sisters gave her a look. "What? Was that not Cronus' thought process?"

"No," Lachesis said. "We just wouldn't have put it so bluntly." To Athena, she said, "When Rhea gave birth to her next two children, Hades and Poseidon, Cronus swallowed them whole too. Rhea was quite upset, so she hatched a plan to make sure her next son would survive."

* * *

 **November 30, 3847 AD, 6:44 AM  
**

Rhea came out of the hospital ward, carrying what looked like a baby out to the waiting room.  


"Little Zeus," she said happily. "Don't wake him, he's asleep."

"And he will be forever," Cronus replied, taking the bundle and swallowing it whole.

"Oh, honey, can you wait? I have to pee."

"Take as much time as you need. I know how hard it is for a Titan to use a human-sized toilet."

Rhea left the waiting room and zipped down the hall to the hospital ward. She met up with a few Oceanid-class nymphs she had been conspiring with for the last few weeks.

"You have the baby?" she asked Metieta, the leader of the band of nymphs.

"Yep," she replied, opening a box to reveal the real Zeus. "Did Cronus take the bait?"

"Sure did. Doesn't even know he swallowed a mannequin." She crouched down and kissed baby Zeus on the forehead. "Stay safe, little Zeus. Mommy loves you."

Then Rhea discovered she really did need to pee, and headed for the nearest bathroom.

* * *

"It worked like a charm," Clotho said. "Cronus never got wise to Rhea's deception. Meanwhile, Zeus grew up with the nymphs, and eventually fell in love with Metieta's daughter, Metis."

"Mom," Athena said, awed.

"That's right. And it was Metis that led Zeus to his plan to overthrow Cronus."

* * *

 **June 11, 3863 AD, 10:00 AM**

It was calm and quiet in the field.

Until he came, that is.

There was a loud _whoosh_ as a blond-haired teenage boy zipped in, manipulating the air, riding it as though it were a horse. He touched down on a cove next to the ocean.

"Still trying to perfect flight, I see," an old-looking human on the beach said to him.

"And you're still trying to perfect beachcombing," Zeus retorted.

The two laughed.

"Good to see you, Poros," Zeus said. "How's my favorite human?"

"None worse for wear. Oh - my daughter called. She has something she'd like to show you."

Zeus tried to figure out what that meant, but then his body shuddered and glowed yellow, then stopped.

"Where am I?" Zeus asked. "Oh - wait. Heh. Sorry, amnesia attack. Happens a lot."

* * *

 **Same day, same year, 10:18 AM**

Zeus arrived at a library. He strolled through the doors. gave a nod of respect to the sleeping guard, then went to find his girlfriend. Which he did - as usual, she had her nose buried in a book.  


"Enjoying yourself?" he asked.

"Oh! Zeus! You scared me." Metis said, laughing a little.

"I can do that," he replied. "So, what did you want to tell me?"

"I know who your parents are."

Zeus' eyes widened.

"They're Cronus and Rhea, current protectors of the human legacy."

His eyes widened even further.


End file.
